Windows 8.1 officially finished; nobody to get it until launch day

MSDN, TechNet, and volume license customers will all have to wait.

Microsoft confirmed this morning that Windows 8.1 has been released to manufacturing ahead of its October 18 retail launch.

Microsoft also confirmed rumors that the new operating system would not be made available early to any customers. Traditionally, the company has made its new operating systems available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, as well as volume license customers.

This allowed developers to test and update their applications ahead of release day to ensure that there were no day one upsets and similarly allowed IT departments to try out the new software.

For reasons that aren't at all apparent, Microsoft has decided that both of these groups can wait. Just as is the case for people upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1, the software will become downloadable globally as soon as it's October 18 in New Zealand; this will be 4am PT on October 17.

With a raft of new APIs and new capabilities for Metro-style Windows Store apps, the usual early access would seem important. The strong implication is that come launch day in October, there won't be any software that actually takes advantage of Windows 8.1's new software capabilities, because developers won't have had a chance to develop or test it.

Steve-o needed to demonstrate one last time he doesn't really grok the digital distribution age?

Or OEMs putting pressure on?

More like he does understand his market, and there is a large demand for hard media. Both in the non-leading edge user base, and in the "omg, I don't have a working internet box here" space. Most software can be digital. But the OS the box is built on? Not always.

What happened to "Shut up and ship?" Is there any rationale in sitting on ready-to-go software for a month?

I just don't understand why a finalized update is left to gather dust for a month instead of being released. Seems like it'd be better for developers and users alike to mingle with the new version sooner.

What happened to "Shut up and ship?" Is there any rationale in sitting on ready-to-go software for a month?

I just don't understand why a finalized update is left to gather dust for a month instead of being released. Seems like it'd be better for developers and users alike to mingle with the new version sooner.

It's the same reason that when you get a new game on release day there's a large patch that clearly took a few weeks or a month to write; or if you bought from steam get a v1.01 initial download.

I suppose this makes sense from a marketing perspective. New versions of Android and iOS, for example, are released to everyone at the same time with no early access. They also result in a lot of pent-up buzz on the release date. Whereas the Windows release dates are pretty anti-climactic from a marketing buzz perspective because we geeks with MSDN subs had already had them for a couple of months. I'm guessing that Microsoft thinks (perhaps incorrectly) that a unified release date would help in that department.

I'm guessing that Microsoft thinks (perhaps incorrectly) that a unified release date will help in that department.

I agree. We're well past the Windows 95 era of people lining up in droves to get a copy of the operating system. Most people probably don't care what operating system is on their PC / laptop so much that it just works with the internet.

This is a little odd to me and makes me wonder if they don't want anyone bad mouthing the changes (or lack of) in 8.1 like they did 8 pre-release.

This reminds me of how film studios will skip screening films they are nervous about before the official release (beyond simply embargoing reviewers).

Or to modify a saying, "If there's nothing good to say, don't let people hear it (before they pay)."

Quote:

More and more films have been withheld from the press prior to opening day - [...] this is a question of the critics being useful to the studios, [...] studios really don't want their weaknesses highlighted and would rather the critics ignore them. That's going to continue."

With as bad as vanilla Win 8 is, you'd think they'd want 8.1 out there ASAP. After all I'm sure there are plenty of people (me included) holding off any upgrade plans until they see if 8.1 fixes everything they don't like about 8.0...

Microsoft is baffling these days. Kill technet, xbox weird artificial limits, institute artificial limits for on releasing their next big OS, crap on business users with full screen apps (Metro). What did they taking a liking to the WHOLE Apple model? Not even Apple drinks their own kool-aide this much.

Microsoft also confirmed rumors that the new operating system would not be made available early to any customers.

Well, OEMs are customers too, even if Microsoft refers to them as 'hardware partners'. It's currently being released to them so that they can install it on their new PCs

It would be weird from a marketing point of view, if existing Windows 8 users could upgrade to 8.1 today online, but someone who bought a brand new laptop today didn't have it come with 'the latest and greatest 'operating system installed.

With as bad as vanilla Win 8 is, you'd think they'd want 8.1 out there ASAP. After all I'm sure there are plenty of people (me included) holding off any upgrade plans until they see if 8.1 fixes everything they don't like about 8.0...

It's interesting, because there are really two or three narratives about Windows 8. The first, and most prevalent story, is that Windows 8 is bad because Microsoft tried to shoehorn a tablet interface into Windows. This was shown before the Win8 release, and after, with YouTube videos expressing confusion and frustration, bloggers decrying the changes, and popular opinion mostly fits in with this story. Most enterprise customers so far in my experience have stuck with Windows 7 and have little to no adoption of Windows 8.

A second narrative is that Windows 8 is great, and people just need to learn how awesome the start screen is in everyday use. People who say this often express frustration with how users are "unwilling to learn" or "embrace change" and often dismiss or outright insult critics of Windows 8. Some strong Microsoft advocates (on this site and others) hold these beliefs, and act as if Windows 8 was mostly a success.

Sales numbers and adoption in the real world don't bear out the second view.

A third perspective, which you hear a bit less but does come up, is that Windows 8 is a fantastic upgrade under the hood, adding great technology and improvements, but was crippled by frustrating UI and annoying front-end changes that look unfinished and slapped together at best. You hear this about Server 2012 as well.

As you can gather, I fall into the third category. The problem I see with 8.1 is that Microsoft didn't ditch the tablet UI or really back away from the strange choices that define the problematic parts of the Win8 experience. Instead they patched some of them over and added in some cues for consumer recognition. the Start button, which still drives the Start Screen (versus the Start Menu which consumers expect and most longtime Windows users prefer). Microsoft listened to criticisms, but made superficial changes which do not address the fundamental issues.

I think Windows 8.1 will not change IT or consumer adoption rates significantly. As long as Dell and HP offer Windows 7 downgrades for enterprise users, Win7 will continue to be the status quo in businesses. Consumers will continue to be standoffish about the new OS, and adopt iOS and Android devices more and more for day to day usage.

I suppose this makes sense from a marketing perspective. New versions of Android and iOS, for example, are released to everyone at the same time with no early access. They also result in a lot of pent-up buzz on the release date. Whereas the Windows release dates are pretty anti-climactic from a marketing buzz because us geeks with MSDN subs had already had them for a couple of months. I'm guessing that Microsoft thinks (perhaps incorrectly) that a unified release date will help in that department.

The most likely explanation is this is done for the manufacturers, who either don't want to deal with support issues or don't want their new systems undermined by easy to obtain upgrades - though it's a free upgrade anyway.

It does make me wonder, though, about 8.1 being free. As an 8 user, I pretty much demanded a free upgrade, I just paid for this less than a year ago. But from a business standpoint, making it a paid upgrade gives the new PCs more value. If the upgrade cost a Apple-esque $40, then that would be nearly 10% of the cost of a new wintel PC for most people. The business model here has to be sorted out by the next guy, having it $40 last year and then $100+ for basically the full version is a bit silly.

I suppose this makes sense from a marketing perspective. New versions of Android and iOS, for example, are released to everyone at the same time with no early access. They also result in a lot of pent-up buzz on the release date. Whereas the Windows release dates are pretty anti-climactic from a marketing buzz because us geeks with MSDN subs had already had them for a couple of months. I'm guessing that Microsoft thinks (perhaps incorrectly) that a unified release date will help in that department.

This is incorrect. As an apple developer I've had early access to the new version of iOS since the keynote in June... Once they hit GM, I get that too; before the release. It has been this way for a while as shown by this chart: http://willhains.com/iOS-version-history Every registered developer gets early access to every beta release.

I'm not familiar with the Android development program, but i strongly suspect you get early versions of the next version of Android as well as an Android developer.

It has been this way every since IBM betrayed all of their developers by shipping a new version of OS/2 with radically different API's than promised; in effect killing all 3rd party OS/2 software, and OS/2 itself.

Microsoft also confirmed rumors that the new operating system would not be made available early to any customers.

Well, OEMs are customers too, even if Microsoft refers to them as 'hardware partners'. It's currently being released to them so that they can install it on their new PCs

It would be weird from a marketing point of view, if existing Windows 8 users could upgrade to 8.1 today online, but someone who bought a brand new laptop today didn't have it come with 'the latest and greatest 'operating system installed.

Don't really understand what is so painful. The CTP build has been publicly available for ages, and the major tech companies would have been on the pre-release builds too.

A lot of the changes they are implementing are visual / superficial and don't really change the underlying APIs or functionality of the OS. The only difference here is the new "Metro" capabilities which were well covered off in the CTP.

So other than that "we want to be 100% sure it works" feeling that an RTM download gives you I don't really know what the problem is.

I ran 8.1 on my home desktop for a few weeks, and it's a lot closer to an operating system that is meant for either mouse or touch, but it isn't quite there yet. I hope they get there by 8.2 (or whatever they do next) because I really like a lot of the improvements of Windows 8.

Has anybody tried to buy Windows 8 from MS' website? It's damn near impossible! I tried to find the link to the full version, but the site insisted I get the upgrade from a previous version, upgrade to Pro from Home or any of the other gazillion options, and after going in cycles for a while, I gave up.

With as bad as vanilla Win 8 is, you'd think they'd want 8.1 out there ASAP. After all I'm sure there are plenty of people (me included) holding off any upgrade plans until they see if 8.1 fixes everything they don't like about 8.0...

It's interesting, because there are really two or three narratives about Windows 8. The first, and most prevalent story, is that Windows 8 is bad because Microsoft tried to shoehorn a tablet interface into Windows. This was shown before the Win8 release, and after, with YouTube videos expressing confusion and frustration, bloggers decrying the changes, and popular opinion mostly fits in with this story. Most enterprise customers so far in my experience have stuck with Windows 7 and have little to no adoption of Windows 8.

A second narrative is that Windows 8 is great, and people just need to learn how awesome the start screen is in everyday use. People who say this often express frustration with how users are "unwilling to learn" or "embrace change" and often dismiss or outright insult critics of Windows 8. Some strong Microsoft advocates (on this site and others) hold these beliefs, and act as if Windows 8 was mostly a success.

Sales numbers and adoption in the real world don't bear out the second view.

A third perspective, which you hear a bit less but does come up, is that Windows 8 is a fantastic upgrade under the hood, adding great technology and improvements, but was crippled by frustrating UI and annoying front-end changes that look unfinished and slapped together at best. You hear this about Server 2012 as well.

As you can gather, I fall into the third category. The problem I see with 8.1 is that Microsoft didn't ditch the tablet UI or really back away from the strange choices that define the problematic parts of the Win8 experience. Instead they patched some of them over and added in some cues for consumer recognition. the Start button, which still drives the Start Screen (versus the Start Menu which consumers expect and most longtime Windows users prefer). Microsoft listened to criticisms, but made superficial changes which do not address the fundamental issues.

I think Windows 8.1 will not change IT or consumer adoption rates significantly. As long as Dell and HP offer Windows 7 downgrades for enterprise users, Win7 will continue to be the status quo in businesses. Consumers will continue to be standoffish about the new OS, and adopt iOS and Android devices more and more for day to day usage.

While I am a blend of both 2 and 3, I do agree with the majority of your points. The one thing I would point out, though, is that iOS and Android adoption was already harming the PC market long before Win8 came along. Win8 didn't do anything to staunch the flow, but it certainly didn't open the wound any further as far as I can tell. The one thing it does do is allow for the possibility of future tablet buyers to buy a Windows-powered tablet. Those tablets may not be powered by Windows 8. It may be Windows 9 or 10 before consumers see a compelling reason to go that route.

Sort of like how consumers didn't really see a compelling reason to ditch their Playstations until the Xbox 360 came around. And despite their pre-launch missteps (which have been mostly corrected), I find the Xbox One equally intriguing.

Has anybody tried to buy Windows 8 from MS' website? It's damn near impossible! I tried to find the link to the full version, but the site insisted I get the upgrade from a previous version, upgrade to Pro from Home or any of the other gazillion options, but after going in cycles for a while, I gave up.

If they want faster adoption, fixing that would probably help.

Apparently you missed all of the press releases and articles when they discussed they wouldn't be selling "retail" copies of Windows anymore. You get OEM and you get upgrade, since most people just used the OEM or upgrade license as a full retail to begin with.

Has anybody tried to buy Windows 8 from MS' website? It's damn near impossible! I tried to find the link to the full version, but the site insisted I get the upgrade from a previous version, upgrade to Pro from Home or any of the other gazillion options, but after going in cycles for a while, I gave up.

If they want faster adoption, fixing that would probably help.

If you're looking for a retail, boxed copy, there is only the Upgrade version this time. This was covered extensively in pre-release coverage. The only way to get a full install is a System Builder (ie: OEM) edition of the OS, which Microsoft has never sold directly to customers through their own site, as far as I can remember.

Both Newegg and Amazon have the System Builder versions of Windows 8 available, however Amazon's prices currently appear to be cheaper.

I would most likely NOT use the CTP version to test the software and since MSDN copies are not available, our internal software will not run on 8.1. I'm sure everyone internally will ball their eyes out ...

I've been bitten by the beta/preview bug a few times to actually test with that.